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Counterfeit 1943 Copper Penny
scamper360
Posts: 3
Now that I've been properly introduced... Yesterday I was cleaning up some of my wheatbacks(ya gotta start somewhere, and yes, I know you shouldn't clean your coins, lol). Anyway, I noticed that one of them was "peeling". Looking closer I saw it was a 1943. Needless to say, I about crapped myself, thinking I had somehow ruined one of the hardest coins to find, from what I had read. So I jump on the internet and looked up 1943 copper and saw that one sure way to check was to put it to a magnet, and of course it stuck. 
On closer inspection, it appears to have been sandblasted on the back where the plating had flaked off. Has anyone else ever come across something like this?
On closer inspection, it appears to have been sandblasted on the back where the plating had flaked off. Has anyone else ever come across something like this? 0
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The two headed quarter was rampant for awhile, then the 1943 copper cent keeps weaving it's ugly head from time to time. There were so many fake copper plated (steel cents) through out the years it is not unusual to see these still being offered on e-bay.
Do they exsist...yes.
40 1943 copper-alloy cents are known to remain in existence. Coin experts speculate that they were struck by accident when copper-alloy 1-cent blanks remained in the press hopper when production began on the new steel pennies.
A 1943 copper cent was first offered for sale in 1958, bringing more than $40,000. A subsequent piece sold for $10,000 at an ANA convention in 1981. The highest amount paid for a 1943 copper cent was $82,500 in 1996.
Because of its collector value, the 1943 copper cent has been counterfeited by coating steel cents with copper or by altering the dates of 1945, 1948, and 1949 pennies.
Good for you for identifying a potential heart failure.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
<< <i>Now that I've been properly introduced... Yesterday I was cleaning up some of my wheatbacks(ya gotta start somewhere, and yes, I know you shouldn't clean your coins, lol). Anyway, I noticed that one of them was "peeling". Looking closer I saw it was a 1943. Needless to say, I about crapped myself, thinking I had somehow ruined one of the hardest coins to find, from what I had read. So I jump on the internet and looked up 1943 copper and saw that one sure way to check was to put it to a magnet, and of course it stuck.
Yup. The "copper" 1943 penny is plated like the racketeer nickel. Some smart alecks thought they could fool people into paying big bucks for a "rarity" when all they did was copper plate a steel war cent. A few real ones exist, but most of us never see them.